At the last Hoover Book Soiree—which if you haven’t attended one yet, you really should—Charlie Savage, New York Times national security reporter and author of the newly released book Power Wars: Inside Obama’s Post-9/11 Presidency, sat down with Lawfare’s Jack Goldsmith for a detailed discussion of the Obama administration’s national security legacy. The conversation, and so too the book, is chocked full of insider accounts of just about all of the most important Obama administration legal and policy decisions. We won't spoil the fun here, but Charlie walks Jack through how Abdulmutallab’s failed underwear bombing affected President Obama, and the two discuss exactly why a president who came into office critiquing Bush's national security policies ended up keeping so many of them. They even touch on whether he will actually shutter Guantanamo Bay.

It’s the Lawfare Podcast Episode #148: Charlie Savage on the Power Wars of the Obama Administration.

You can read Jack's review of Power Wars, mentioned in the podcast, here.